Wednesday 3 July 2024

Clocking Off - Season 4 (2003, Various)

Moral dilemmas and unresolved situations are never better portrayed in the Mark Benton story. He realises there's something wrong with his challenged, institutionalised younger brother Craig Heaney. He finds out it's his violent and brutal 'carer' who he kills in self-defence. The brother is accused and even though Benton confesses they still don't believe him and the brother gets 10 years, whilst the real culprit gets off with it. He should have phoned the police immediately - no doubt other victims would have come forward. But this is Clocking Off and people behave 'realistically'. I think I'm quite looking forward to the end of all these 'real' people behaving 'realistically'.

What else is going on? Pam Ferris is the good new boss who makes it work despite her useless husband (Keith Barron) dying at the eleventh hour. Jack Deam develops epilepsy after being run over by Branka Katic, and Nicola Stephenson runs away from her marriage to Derek Riddell.

Then in the finale all the cast appear in a grand song and dance routine. Not. No, the last two cover racism (from all angles) and then a weird finale in which Freda (Joan Kempson) starts behaving very weirdly indeed and almost causes the factory to go bust.

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